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Steve Phillips, the secretary-general of the Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL), knows better than to claim that his job is glamorous.

“Roads and road infrastructure is not necessarily the sexiest of subjects. When it’s working, you don’t notice it; when it goes wrong, everybody notices. If we are doing a good job, we won’t be recognised for it.”

Phillips’s working life has encompassed two broad themes – transport and science – that are combined in his current job, guiding an organisation that brings together the expertise of institutions researching highway engineering and road transport. Their research covers the full gamut of safety, energy efficiency, traffic flow, and sustainability, and his job is about influencing how road infrastructure develops in Europe.

Born in north Wales – the family moved between the towns of St Asaph, Rhyl and Flint – before moving to Devon in south-west England, Phillips studied astrophysics at the University of Cardiff. There was a family link to transport, as his father was a civil engineer working for local councils on transport schemes. “I wouldn’t say it was in my blood, but there was an awareness about infrastructure and civil engineering,” he says.

After completing his studies, Phillips moved to London to work in the UK’s civil service on science issues. He was given the job of a researcher in the department of transport, where his work concentrated on traffic, specifically the problems associated with loading and unloading in congested London. “But the scientist in me wanted to get out, so I moved to dealing with environmental issues, specifically noise.”

It was that role that gave Phillips his first taste of dealing with the European Union institutions. As an expert on noise for the department of transport, he worked closely with the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe, which develops international industry regulations and norms, and discusses best practice, so as to promote economic integration. The work involved a lot of time in Geneva and Brussels.

“That’s when some of my frustrations started to come out about why transport issues weren’t organised better at the international level,” he says. “There were times when I was sitting there in a crowded chamber, arguing with scientists from other countries. We have to agree on the underlying science in order for policies and directives to move forward.”

When the job at FEHRL became available, Phillips jumped at the chance to try to address some of his concerns. “I thought it would be interesting for three years, and I’m still here ten years later as I got more enthused by the topic.”

The secretary-general job is a private-sector one, though FEHRL’s members come predominantly from the public sector. The organisation is governed by a general assembly, with a president and a vice-president who are elected from the national institutions that make up its members.

An expanding member base

When he started, FEHRL’s membership was limited to the EU’s member states and Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. That was quickly expanded to include EU candidate countries, and now also includes national transport organisations in Israel, South Africa and the United States. Despite the expansion, he says: “We want to stay European. Our main focus is European. Any country we deal with must have an agreement with the European Commission on science and technology.”

One of the major challenges that Phillips has to deal with is improving co-operation between transport institutes in different countries. One of the ways of achieving that is through the Transport Research Arena (TRA), an international conference that takes place every two years (TRA 2012 takes place in Athens on 23-26 April). “The transport sector remains very fragmented,” says Phillips.

“TRA tries to solve that problem. I have been involved in every single one [the first conference was in 2006] and this year sees a big leap forward as it will be the first multi-modal TRA conference, bringing in the rail sector, the water-borne transport sector and others.”

FEHRL, whose office is on Boulevard de la Woluwe in Brussels (ironically, close to a tunnel that is notorious for flooding), is devoting particular energy to its Forever Open Road initiative. “Two years ago, we asked ourselves how we promote our message; that’s when I came up with the idea of Forever Open Road. The idea is to have the road that never closes. Climate-change adaptation is a major issue. Roads have to be able to deal with rainfall, flooding, snow, avalanches, high winds. We have to adapt our infrastructure, which could come at enormous cost. We need it to be available and affordable, but also acceptable.”

How that happens could take many forms, from installing the technology to charge electric vehicles to “the road that understands its history, that knows when it needs repairing”.

He says: “I just want to make sure that the policies are based on scientific evidence.” The job may not be glamorous, but Phillips is striving to make sure that it is rigorous.